Stalking

[mydarkerside]

Consider the movie Hellraiser. Not the increasingly sucky sequels, but the great, riveting, incredible  original. In that movie, Pinhead was sort of like the sword of Damocles, hovering over the characters. Doug Bradley pointed out in an interview that the real monsters in that movie were Claire and Frank. Pinhead wasn't really the monster in that movie, he was a neutral judge. And one of the key moments in the movie is the very first scene, where Frank buys the puzzle box from the mysterious Asian gentlemen, forks over his money, and walks away saying triumphantly, "It's mine!". And the Asian man who sold him the puzzle box of doom sits, and  says quietly to himself, "It always was."

OT completely, but thank you for reminding me that that movie exists.

[Quixote]

I don't want to be reminded, I stopped reading the book, "The Hellbound Heart" (no?  it was a while ago.) in the middle ...

*hangs head in shame*

[Sterling7]

I think it was also Gaiman who wrote a short story for a collection of stories about the Hellraiser universe. In the story, taking place in the Old West, a mysterious man comes to the local hotshot gambler and offers him the greatest gift in the world if he beats him in a hand of poker. He takes out a Puzzle Box.

After much fear and trepidation, the local gambler wins... And the mysterious stranger, fulifilling his word, takes the Puzzle Box away.

[Quixote]

Didn't know about that.  Charming.

[Sterling7]

The other reason, simply, is sympathy. (Ah ha ha ha. Seriously, hold on, I'm going somewhere with this.) With too much knowledge, the rapist may begin to think of the victim as, on some level, Someone Like Them.

Thank you for bringing the issue up, it's been nagging at me.

The most obvious and often-used way to dampen sympathy in rape tales is through the use of anger.  Asked why he is treating her with such dishonor, the Sultan simply replies, “Because I hate you.”  But this is clearly an impersonal hatred, something he needs to feel in order to accomplish his goal, not something  the story has demonstrated she “deserves,” and clearly not something she will ever feel she deserved...and therein a little pocket of “just-so” mental resistance is created for the victim.  i just hate to see a good opportunity for a mindfuck go to waste.

On a purely personal level, rage on the part of the rapist leaves me disappointed, because, for me, it represents a loss of control and an exploitable weakness.

Now I feel a little embarassed, as I'm responsible for the story quoted.

In my defense, the story was written to be short, brutal, and efficient; sometimes, I write with an eye toward getting to the violent sex quickly, trying to do little more than set the scene so the reader can see it in their mind's eye.

I do have somewhat more in my own mind. How the unlucky wife might have had ambivalent feelings about the marriage, shame to be possessed by the one who deposed her noble house, but imagining that there was a kind of honor in being so married, that it offered a kind of protected status to her and her family. The discovery that her marriage did not bring her honor or protection, but merely made her a kind of trophy, available and even righteous to use and abuse, to hurt and degrade. That the first time he took her so, she might have imagined it some sort of temporary thing, a sign of the way wives were treated or a putting her in her place, a kind of initiation into the household or her husband's sexual proclivities. Only now is she realizing that this is ever more going to be her lot, that other wives are not treated so, and even the smallest mercies are not within her power to beg.

The sultan only reveals as much because it hurts her all the more. His power over her body established, he now deprives her of hope and the possibility of dignity. Even her survival is not a given, and he does not rape her mindlessly or casually, but goes to lengths to insure her personal suffering will be long and drawn out.

I might venture that as a ruler, and a man with many wives, that the Sultan is frequently expected to be fair and just, showing compassion and justice to all, making clear his power but not giving rise to fears that it will be wielded capriciously. In his dishonored wife's chamber, his only subject cannot oppose him, no matter how cruel his will. She is the receptacle of all his frustrations, every compromise he must make, every decision not executed to his fullest satisfaction.

[Quixote]

Well, we all know a woman you can hurt makes the best stress-toy ... :-)

But seriously, I read what you describe in your story, which I like very much.

I think that the idea that this is only one side of the Sultan is interesting, and that is one of the things I liked about it.

[Oak]

Very nice poll. I think that I'll go for more of the questions. First I'll shadow her to know all of her routines. Finding things usable against her, her deepest fears and secrets, things from her past, which can be used against her. The things that makes her, who she is.

I'll have to know her, to have feelings for her, to see her as a person and not just as a thing.